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A review by childofmongreldogs
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
4.0
To start, this has a helluva lot of triggers to keep in mind. This book would 100% be an x-rated movie. There's a metric shit ton of blood, gore, curses, death, torture, sex, sexual assault etc along with things like dismemberment and just gross things in general. This is a read at your own risk kind of book.
This wasn't a book that I loved but the concept was really interesting and the writing was good. I sincerely don't really have much to complain about it either which is a nice change from a lot of the books I've been reading lately.
Basic concept is that the end of the world happens. This is definitely an interesting take on the idea of gendered diseases/pandemics that we've seen in other forms of media. This novel just takes into consideration the existence of trans people. Men (or, rather, anyone who has a significant amount of testosterone) ends up turning into a monster.
Honestly, I'm not one for excessive gore. I think my only exception to this would be Stephen Graham Jones but I might make another exception for Felker-Martin. This novel is exceptionally gory and pretty gross. Yet, she does a great job of selling us these characters, even the villainess of the story with this back drop of violence and dirt. I'll say here that Beth absolutely devastated me on so many levels.
If I had all day or the inclination to, I'd go point by point on some of the most unfair and ridiculous arguments made about this book being bad. Instead, I'll save myself the energy and just that I found a lot of other reviews to be absolutely ridiculous. Like, being mad about men being portrayed as blood thirsty monsters. Sorry, that's the story? There's a male main character who obviously isn't a monster lol. Finally, on this, while there is a lot of sex, it's really brief and not really that crazy. I'm surprised anyone has mentioned this when people were screwing and fucking in the Walking Dead, the Last of Us, Dawn of the Dead, literally any apocalyptic media has people getting down and dirty. I know for a fact some of you are reading erotica L M A O. Why are you mad at this one?
I felt that the narrative was actually really kind to the antagonists as well which was a genuine surprise to me considering how up in arms people got over this. Spoiler: the main antagonists beyond the blood thirsty monsters/zombies are called TERFs and they go around as a large group and route out those who aren't "XX" chromosomed. I will say that the reason this doesn't get a five stars for me is because of how after school special the author seemed at times about this point. I'd actually go so far as to say that the novel went too far in siding with the antagonists, even. Though, I suppose that fairness also lends some credibility and realism to their motivations.
Final sidenote that I finished the last half of this novel as an ebook instead of audio. There was nothing wrong with Katherina Pucciariello (the narrator) but this was definitely not the kind of book I wanted to listen to while in the car or washing dishes. She did a good job of differentiating the voices of the characters too. Just not my cup of tea.
This wasn't a book that I loved but the concept was really interesting and the writing was good. I sincerely don't really have much to complain about it either which is a nice change from a lot of the books I've been reading lately.
Basic concept is that the end of the world happens. This is definitely an interesting take on the idea of gendered diseases/pandemics that we've seen in other forms of media. This novel just takes into consideration the existence of trans people. Men (or, rather, anyone who has a significant amount of testosterone) ends up turning into a monster.
Honestly, I'm not one for excessive gore. I think my only exception to this would be Stephen Graham Jones but I might make another exception for Felker-Martin. This novel is exceptionally gory and pretty gross. Yet, she does a great job of selling us these characters, even the villainess of the story with this back drop of violence and dirt. I'll say here that Beth absolutely devastated me on so many levels.
If I had all day or the inclination to, I'd go point by point on some of the most unfair and ridiculous arguments made about this book being bad. Instead, I'll save myself the energy and just that I found a lot of other reviews to be absolutely ridiculous. Like, being mad about men being portrayed as blood thirsty monsters. Sorry, that's the story? There's a male main character who obviously isn't a monster lol. Finally, on this, while there is a lot of sex, it's really brief and not really that crazy. I'm surprised anyone has mentioned this when people were screwing and fucking in the Walking Dead, the Last of Us, Dawn of the Dead, literally any apocalyptic media has people getting down and dirty. I know for a fact some of you are reading erotica L M A O. Why are you mad at this one?
I felt that the narrative was actually really kind to the antagonists as well which was a genuine surprise to me considering how up in arms people got over this. Spoiler: the main antagonists beyond the blood thirsty monsters/zombies are called TERFs and they go around as a large group and route out those who aren't "XX" chromosomed. I will say that the reason this doesn't get a five stars for me is because of how after school special the author seemed at times about this point. I'd actually go so far as to say that the novel went too far in siding with the antagonists, even. Though, I suppose that fairness also lends some credibility and realism to their motivations.
Final sidenote that I finished the last half of this novel as an ebook instead of audio. There was nothing wrong with Katherina Pucciariello (the narrator) but this was definitely not the kind of book I wanted to listen to while in the car or washing dishes. She did a good job of differentiating the voices of the characters too. Just not my cup of tea.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Murder, Outing, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Fatphobia, Sexual violence, Ableism, Animal death, Blood, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Body shaming, Transphobia, Gore, and Miscarriage